


Under the Christmas Tree

by Deifire



Series: Eerie Advent Calendar Challenge [25]
Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 06:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5530121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deifire/pseuds/Deifire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Marshall hadn’t put the giant artificial Christmas tree in the center of downtown Eerie on the list of potentially weird things that needed investigating...</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Christmas Tree

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Eerie Advent Calendar fic challenge.
> 
> Prompt: Under the Christmas tree.

_The first December after_

Marshall hadn’t put the giant artificial Christmas tree in the center of downtown Eerie on the list of potentially weird things that needed investigating, so he was more than a little startled when something reached out from inside it and grabbed him from behind. 

He barely suppressed a shout, a fact he was grateful for when he heard an all-too-familiar laugh.

“Dash,” he muttered through gritted teeth, and sure enough, when he turned, saw it was Dash’s hands, marked with their familiar symbols, protruding from the fake pine branches, one resting on Marshall’s shoulder and the other resting on Simon’s.

“A little jumpy, aren’t we?” said Dash, who, yes, had somehow gotten _inside_ the town Christmas tree. He laughed again, and then said, “Get in.”

Marshall was about to ask what Dash was talking about, but then looked down and saw that at the bottom of the tree, there was a gap between the branches just large enough for an enterprising fourteen-year-old to squeeze through. He was about to refuse, but then Simon dropped to his knees and crawled inside.

“Simon—" Marshall began, and sighed. It had been less than a year since Dash had tried to have him killed off the TV version of his own life, and while, admittedly, he hadn’t tried anything like that again—and had in fact, even saved Marshall and Simon from weird thing or another once or twice—it still didn’t mean Marshall trusted him.

Unfortunately, Marshall hadn’t quite gotten around to explaining the situation to Simon yet.

He followed his trusted associate.

Once inside the tree, he stood up and watched as Dash replaced the artificial greenery to cover the gap. The whole thing was completely hollow inside, Marshall realized, supported by a single pole in the center. As long as they avoiding tripping over the multiple lighting cords, there more than enough room for the three of them to stand up and walk around.

“Okay, what do you want? Why are we here?” he asked Dash. 

But Dash just gestured to where Simon was standing peering through the branches. “This is so cool!” said Simon. “You can see the whole town from here!”

Marshall forced himself to take his eyes off Dash long enough to have a look. Sure enough, it was a near-perfect clandestine view of downtown Eerie. There was Mr. Radford standing outside of the World O’ Stuff chatting with Mr. Serling from the Eerie Video Store and the woman who owned Everything Corn. Over to their left, he spotted Andrea Fantucci, the girl he’d once had a serious crush on. She was walking with another girl he recognized as Mary C. Carter, the niece of the _other_ Mary Carter he’d helped reunite with the ghost of her one true love. To their left was Mr. Chaney, sitting on a bench sipping Cornades with Marshall’s former teacher, Miss Annabell Lee. 

He watched the Wilson twins stroll by laden with packages, and a little blonde girl, in a hurry to join up with her friends, drop her doll on the sidewalk. It was picked up a few moments later by a member of the Unkind Ones, who received a grateful hug when he caught up with the girl and handed it back to her.

All over, shoppers laughed, and chatted, and rushed past them, not paying the slightest attention to the tree, or having the slightest idea that there was someone watching them from inside it.

“Nice,” said Marshall.

“I thought you’d appreciate the view, Slick,” said Dash. 

Was this why Dash had invited them in here? Did he just want to show off? If Marshall had been the one to find a secret hiding place this cool, his first thought wouldn’t have been to share it with _his_ mortal enemy. It would be like him inviting Dash up to the Secret Spot. Which was definitely never happening again.

“Um, thanks,” he said aloud.

Dash seemed about to say something else, but then Simon interrupted with, “Hey, Mars, check it out! Ten o’clock!”

Marshall hurried over to where Simon was standing and looked out through the tree branches. Across the way, where they were hidden from nearly everyone else behind the giant statue of an ear of corn, Mayor Chisel and Elvis stood talking with a figure in a hooded cloak. The mayor handed the figure what looked like an envelope full of cash. The figure took it, then reached inside its sleeve with its other hand to produce a small, gold box with a festive red bow on top. 

Mayor Chisel took the box and opened its hinged lid. He and Elvis were bathed in an unearthly green glow until the mayor shut the box again, nodded, and shook the hooded figure’s long, gloved hand. Business concluded, he and Elvis set off in the direction of City Hall. The hooded figure left in the opposite direction, and vanished into the crowd.

“Whoa. Mega-weird,” said Simon.

“Yeah,” said Marshall.

“Yeah,” said Dash, who Marshall was startled to realize was standing right next to him. 

“Want to go find out what’s going on?" Marshall asked Simon, hoping against all hope that Dash hadn’t noticed that it was the second time today he’d managed to make Marshall jump.

“Absolutely,” said Simon. “The forces of weirdness don’t rest just because it's Christmas time, and neither do we.” He gave a significant glance over Marshall’s shoulder, then back at Marshall.

Marshall considered. He and Dash were never going to be friends, but it couldn’t hurt to have one more ally if they were going up against Chisel. Plus, having Dash where he could keep an eye on him seemed preferable to leaving Dash behind and wondering when he was going to sneak up on them again. 

“Dash?” he asked. “Are you in?”

Dash blinked at him. “Are you kidding? You two geniuses do realize that you’re probably going to get yourselves killed?” 

Marshall shrugged. “Okay, fine.”

“In fact, a quick death is probably your best-case scenario here.”

Marshall just shrugged again. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had that particular problem. Somehow, I’m still here. Be seeing you, I guess.”

There was a pause. “On the other hand, whatever that was looked like it was worth a lot of money,” Dash finally conceded.

“Yeah?” said Marshall. He folded his arms and raised an eyebrow as if curious to see where Dash was going with this.

“I could be persuaded to help out for, say, sixty percent of the profits.”

“Whatever,” Marshall said.

“Okay, fifty percent, but that’s my final offer.”

Marshall didn’t reply. Instead, he waited until most of the town’s view of the tree was blocked by a line of caroling milkmen from the Eerie Dairy before removing the greenery from the bottom so they could crawl out again.

He noticed Dash was behind them when they did.

“Okay, so we need a plan,” Marshall said, as three emerged and nonchalantly attempted to blend into the crowd as if they had been part of it the whole time. “One that will let us sneak in to City Hall. More importantly, one that will let us sneak back out again in time to be home by six. Mom wants us there to help finish decorating our tree, remember, Simon?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Simon. Then, “Hey, Dash, do you want to…?”

“NO!” said Dash and Marshall simultaneously.

Simon seemed taken aback by the force of that response, but recovered quickly. “Okay, a plan,” he said. “So here’s what I’m thinking…” 

And as Simon began to outline the details, the three walked off together into the Eerie December afternoon.


End file.
